


Magic, Mutation, or a Miracle

by Wind_Waves



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Harry Hart Lives, Jossed to hell and back, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:33:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6239530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wind_Waves/pseuds/Wind_Waves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone thought Harry Hart died the moment Valentine pulled the trigger in front of a dusty church in Kentucky.</p><p>They thought wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An idea I've had bouncing around in my brain for awhile. ~~I couldn't think of plot to back it up, so it turned into a one-shot to keep the writing bits of my mind busy.~~ Now with continuation!

Harry hauls himself off the ground. It takes far more effort than he is accustomed to; each limb feels like a strip of wobbly jello. Every single one of his joints ache and creak like a rusty machine. His head is pounding. With some effort, he scrapes the dust off his tongue and spits out onto the ground. 

It comes out bloody. 

Shit. Fuck. 

His face stings, faintly; he very gingerly probes the worst of it with his fingers, and comes away with shattered bits of glass, his facial muscles twinging helplessly from the pain. He looks around, and sees a plain battered church and faded blue sky, just beginning to brighten as the sun touches it with light. 

Well then. It seems he has survived Valentine’s bullet to see another day. 

He needs a mirror, and preferably a first aid kit to inspect the damage. There is probably a bathroom, or a kit somewhere in the building. But first- 

He has to stand up. 

It’s a harder task than one might expect. After a few moments of struggle, he manages to get his legs under him and get to his feet, as wobbly as a newborn colt. During the short journey to the church doors, he stumbles no fewer than three times, his feet aching in his Oxfords. 

As soon as he gets there he leans against the wood, the paint flakes scraping against his forehead as he pants. God, so much effort to move fifteen feet. He thinks of navigating the corpses inside, and groans. A quick rest, then. He slumps to the ground, back hitting the doors with a soft thump. Just a bit of rest. 

He dozes for a bit, and then jerks alert at the sound of a car pulling up, gravel crunching under tires. He peers out beneath slitted eyelids, just in case his new visitors are hostile. 

Silver SUV. Man and woman in front. The woman comes out and steps around the car in oxfords and a very neatly pressed suit. Kingsman- maybe. Hopefully. She’s short and petite, East-Asian. Possibly Chinese, but he would ask first. Young, likely not older than mid-thirties. Maybe he could take her in his condition; probably not, if she was trained to any level of competence. She steps closer- closer- 

-and pauses at the scuff at the ground where he had fallen, her head turned towards the bloodstain. The sun lances off of her hair, a gleaming black. She looks at him, crumpled at the doors of the church, and comes close enough that he can feel the wind from her movements shivering against his skin. 

“I know you’re awake,” she says. 

Harry flicks his eyes open, jolting into motion. The woman backs up a little and gives him space, which he appreciates. 

“We- were here for body retrieval of agent Galahad. White male, early fifties, brown hair, brown eyes. Six-foot two- or one-point-eight-eight meters. You fit that description- verify yourself.” 

She, not very subtly, points her watch at him. 

Normally, he would request she verify herself first. But under the circumstances… “Galahad, of UK HQ. Oxfords not Brogues. Registration number 12-19-97.” 

“Oh, thank fucking Christ. Hamilton, US Branch.” She holds out her hand to help him up. “Not sure if verification will help you at the moment, to be honest.” 

Harry briefly touches his glasses as she pulls him up. They’re completely shattered. Merlin’s craftsmanship is remarkable, but even Kingsman-issue glasses would have issue standing up to a point-blank shot. “You’re right. It can wait.” 

He feels considerably better this time as he rises to his feet, save for a gnawing, terrible hunger in his stomach. But there are more pressing things at hand. Harry has barely climbed in and shut the door before her partner takes off, tires spinning madly. 

“Jefferson,” the man offers gruffly. “Pleased to see you aren’t dead.” 

It’s a little strange to look at the left hand side and see the driver. “Thank you.” 

Jefferson doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “You’re welcome. We’re going back to headquarters. Yeah, don’t get your panties in a twist, Franklin, headed back right now.” He slows down as he approaches a main street. Bodies litter the road, lying on top of each other or buried under cars where drivers had seemingly run into and over pedestrians without mercy. “Sorry, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” 

Harry turns away from the windows, swallowing dryly and choosing to stare at the passenger seat back instead. The town looks just like the church, as if somebody had taken whatever had caused that and used it on the whole town. An enormous, bloody massacre. “What on earth happened?” 

Jefferson takes his gaze off the windshield to look at him, surprised. He then exchanges a wary glance with Hamilton. 

It is an exchange Harry has not had the displeasure of being on the receiving end very often. He likes it even less now. 

Finally, Hamilton says: “We’ll fill you in later- or your head of operations will, whichever comes first. First aid now.” 

He opens his mouth to argue, but she’s already snapping on gloves and pulling a kit out from under the backseat. “Don’t want to go through the trouble of picking you up only to have you bleed out in the backseat of our damn car. C’mere. Watch my finger? Doesn’t seem like you’re concussed. Are you hurt anywhere else besides your face?” 

Harry swallows his impatience for the moment, and thinks back. He can remember some of what happened in the church, his own pain like spots of bright white recollection in faded memory. “I was stabbed in the back- here, I think.” He tries to turn around to show her but he cringes, wincing. “Perhaps a few cracked ribs. Bruising. Nothing too serious.” 

Hamilton checks the stab wound first. He has to unbuckle to turn around comfortably, and keeps a hand braced on the seat to stay stable. Her gloved fingers prod through the slit layers of fabric, and then later, directly on his skin. There is a pause. “You sure?” 

“I was quite certain,” Harry says. He remembers the clean sear of the wound clearly, even in the heat of the fight. 

She presses hard. “No pain?” 

“It aches.” 

“Well,” she swipes an alcohol wipe over the area, “plenty of dried blood, maybe some bruising, but I don’t see any stab wound.” 

“Could you show me?” 

“Yeah, gimme a sec.” She snaps a picture with her phone, and hands it to him. Like she said, there is no wound. 

He stares. The man had stabbed him. If there was anything else that happened in that godforsaken church he is more certain of, he would be hard pressed to name it. In the end, he can only return her phone to her. “My apologies. I must have been mistaken.” 

“You probably got lucky. These suits are blade-resistant, aren’t they?” 

“Yes.” But not when a heavyset middle-aged man grinds a knife into you with all of his rage-fueled strength. Harry shakes himself. He ought to be happy he just got away with just bruises. 

“Right then. Face now.” 

She busies herself with removing a pair of forceps, ripping them out of their packaging and holding them carefully aloft as she applies an alcohol wipe to his face. It stings, but only faintly. The smell of it pricks his nose.

“Huh. Less torn up than I thought,” she says, plucking out a few stray shards of glass. She lifts away his hair to inspect the frame of his glasses more carefully. “Oh, not good.” 

“What is it?” Harry asks, keeping his face as still as possible. 

“Looks like the metal on this side is, eh. No good way to put this. It’s crumpled into your face. It’s gonna hurt.” 

“Do as you think best,” Harry says. 

Hamilton gently applies the wipe again. The entire care is beginning to smell of alcohol, and she jerks and swears as the car jumps. “Goddammit.” 

“Sorry,” Jefferson calls back. “We’re getting on the highway now. There’s junk all over the place.” 

“It’s fine.” Hamilton peers closely at Harry’s face, long enough that he grows slightly uncomfortable. “I think most of his wounds are superficial, so let’s just get to the evacuation point asap. If it’s worse than I think, we’ll pull over.” 

“Roger.” 

She turns back to Harry. “Tilt your head back-perfect. Hold still, yeah? And shut your eyes, if you like. I’m going to take off the right side of your glasses first. The only part that’s sticking is the bit around your left eye socket, and the left arm- can you feel it?” 

He can. It’s a strange, wavery and occasionally stinging blur of pain in the general vicinity of his left eye as she manipulates the right arm of the glasses. 

The process that follows is long and surprisingly draining. She gently pulls at the metal, using the forceps to help tug out bits that have more deeply pressed themselves into his flesh. Harry can feel his muscles tense and tighten in response, his teeth bared in a slight grimace. Sometimes, she has to pause to let the car go past a particularly rough spot before she continues. 

With a final burst of white-hot pain, the entire frame lifts from his face. A bit of blood, damp and wet, trickles down his temple. “There we go. Done.” 

He’s experienced worse pain before by far, so Harry has no explanation for why he feels so ill and dizzy. A soft rumble from his lower regions reminds him how hungry he is. He lets his head loll back and his eyes slip closed as Hamilton changes gloves and comes back with yet another wipe. 

She prods- it doesn’t sting- and pauses. “What the fuck?” 

Harry opens his eyes. “Pardon?” 

She ignores him. “Franklin, you seeing this?” 

Harry scowls, but she presses hard into the wound, surprisingly strong. It prevents him from moving as her fingers stretch his skin tightly. This time, it hurts. “Hamilton, what are you-“ 

“Jefferson, pull over. Right now. Take a look at this.” 

With a squeal of screeching tires, the car comes to a halt. Jefferson pokes his head around the driver’s seat and comes far too close to Harry’s face for comfort. “Holy shit.” 

“Cool, so I’m not just going crazy.”

“Man,” Jefferson says to Harry, “If you guys already had the nanomachines developed you should have told us. Bad form.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let go of me,” he snarls, and Hamilton finally seems to register how tense he is and backs off. 

“Sorry.” She swipes some more at his face with the wipe, then tosses them with her glove into a disposal bag. “Don’t think we’ll need this anymore,” she says, beginning to put away the kit.

“What do you mean?” 

Jefferson starts the car again in the background, and Hamilton hesitates briefly before handing him her glasses. “Put them on.” 

He unfolds the arms and hovers the glasses awkwardly over his face, to avoid touching the damaged skin. They appear for all the world like normal glasses. Hamilton rolls her eyes and says, “Franklin, show him the feed.” 

A couple of clicks sound over the line, and the screen flickers to life. On the tiny screen is clearly his face, close-up and in high-definition; he can see every wrinkle, every speck of dust, every fleck of dried blood. Hamilton’s gloved hands are bright white compared to the dullness of his skin, a smattering of crimson staining the fingers. Between her index finger and thumb is a wound; relatively shallow, but head wounds tend to bleed quite a bit, and a smattering of fresh blood spills from the opening even as he watches. 

Then an alcohol wipe comes down, swiping across the gash; the blood clears away, and before his very eyes his skin begins to knit together. The camera draws back, and in that moment he sees what Hamilton must have seen- the places where she just removed the bent and twisted metal frame and glass beginning to heal rapidly, leaving not even a single scratch. 

"You see?" Hamilton says. 

Harry feels- he doesn’t know how he feels. He gives her glasses back- unnecessary, really, to hold them over his face like that. His hands are shaking badly when he takes his own phone out of his pocket and uses the camera to peer at his own face. He looks pale, drawn, a bit ill, but otherwise perfectly healthy. There are a few pale, pink scars stretching across his left temple, the only evidence that remains of his harrowing encounter with a bullet. 

Hamilton is still watching closely when he slumps into the seat. He swallows dryly, a strange faint buzz starting in his head, almost like the beginnings of a headache. 

Fuck. Shit. Bugger. 

“We don’t have nanomachines,” he says into the silence. “Merlin is brilliant, but even he claims those things are at least a decade off. If not more. That’s not taking into account the reconstruction of muscle and skin, just the possibility of rapid drug administration. And- thank you, for the medical attention.” 

“No problem,” she says, still watching him closely, contemplatively. Finally, she turns her piercing gaze away. 

As Hamilton settles on the backseat, Harry finally allows himself to drift to the low hum of the car’s engine, the events of the day finally catching up to him. He feels wretched, throat parched and stomach empty. 

Nanomachines are a highly unlikely reason for him to be healing in the way he watched on Hamilton’s glasses. He’d only offered the possibility in the first place because he could think of nothing else that could cause it. The other options are magic, a mutation, or a miracle.

A series of possibilities: 

Valentine’s hand held steady on the trigger as he pulled it, eyes straight and face forward. He saw Harry’s head snap backwards from the impact of the bullet. He watched for the spray of blood. While he vomited on the ground, one of his men came forwards to see- yes, the bullet had gone directly through Harry’s skull. It had smashed through his glasses and left him nothing more than a bleeding corpse on the ground. Then, when all of them had walked away, his skull knitted itself together, his brain repaired itself, his stab wound healed, and only the glass and metal embedded prevented his body from completely sealing itself around his wounds. 

Magic, mutation, or a miracle. 

Harry rarely calls things impossible, having seen and performed enough ‘impossible’ things to not rule out any possibility lightly. But before he woke up on the ground of that dusty church-

Yes, he would have thought his survival impossible. 

He wants a medical checkup, right now. He wants to speak to Merlin, with a desperation that startles him with its intensity. He wants Merlin to have an explanation, he wants to see someone with a medical degree, anyone who can just give him some bloody fucking answers. 

Harry Hart wants many things, but Galahad keeps his lips pressed tight. 

“Fifteen minutes before we get to the evacuation point,” Hamilton says. 

Harry clenches his fingers, knuckles white around the arm rest, and watches the sun rise to its peak in the mid-morning sky.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think I would be continuing this, but here I am and here we are.

Harry dozes fitfully in the car. Hunger, pain, and worry conspire to shake him out of his half-conscious state every few minutes, strands of curdling anxiety drawing him from one brief moment of awareness to the next. It’s like the few days following the completion of a mission, when he has to check the locks and security at least twice before he goes to bed and wakes at every faint noise in the night. Thankfully, they arrive at their destination quickly. 

“We’re here,” Jefferson says.

‘Here’ turns out to be a wide, open stretch of highway long enough to accommodate the take-off of a four-person plane. Jefferson ditches the car- “Nothing special, all it has is a tracker”- and helps Harry to the plane. He would protest, but as loathe he is to admit it he needs the assistance. His wounds having mysteriously healed notwithstanding, he’s still dehydrated and dizzy, leaning heavily on Jefferson for support. 

Hamilton reaches the pilot first. After a brief conversation, she gestures for them to enter. 

“Good to see you alive, sir,” the pilot says as Harry ducks into the plane. 

“Thank you,” Harry says. “Does everyone know that I survived?” 

“Not everyone,” Jefferson says from the front. “Just us so far. We’ll see about ‘everyone’ once we’re back to base.” 

Harry snorts, and even Hamilton manages a chuckle. 

“Let’s get you out of here, shall we?” The pilot says. “Buckle up. I’m sure you all know the drill.” 

They do. At one point, Harry found air travel exciting; but by now boarding a plane has become as routine as the daily commute to the shop, even if it has changed considerably from since when he was younger. Belt, parachute, life vest, safety check, and the plane lifts up into the sky, the church and the bodies and finally the whole state disappearing into a green and brown patchwork of land. 

Hamilton and Jefferson are very kind and split their in-flight meals with him. Unfortunately, having expected a corpse, they don’t have another. The food is bland and tasteless as only airplane food can be, but Harry is only aware he has finished when his fork clatters down on an empty plate. Thirst slaked and hunger sated, he leans back in his seat, fully prepared to sleep for the entirety of the two or three hours it will take to arrive at the U.S headquarters. 

Everything else can wait. 

Before long, his exhaustion pulls him under. 

\---

“Wake up.”

The barest of touches alights on his shoulder. 

“Galahad.” 

Harry, most unwillingly, surfaces from the fuzzy depths of sleep. He keeps his eyes shut for another glorious, blissful moment, right before his brain snaps awake and kicks him alert. 

His eyelids cling as he blinks, as if stuck by a thin film. “Pardon?” 

“We’re landing.” 

Slowly, the haze next to him revolves into the form of Hamilton, seated to his immediate right. Harry finally finds his tongue. “Ah, thank you.” 

She wordlessly hands him a bottle, and Harry gratefully takes it, rinsing the taste of sleep out of his mouth. He is sure his breath smells awful, but there is nothing he can do about it. 

In fact, his time spent sprawled on the Kentucky ground is catching up to him. His muscles ache as if he’s been running for hours. There’s grit in his hair, dirt and sweat smeared at his temples. The only think he can think to be grateful for is the fact that his bruises no longer seem to be hurting- then he recalls his skin melting together, and his stomach flips like a landed fish. 

Breathing deeply, he leans forwards, elbows to knees until the nausea subsides. 

Soon, the plane starts its rapid descent. Harry grits his teeth against the pressure in his ears. 

The plane shudders beneath his feet, engines protesting terribly until, finally, the plane slams into the ground as the sound of gravel fills his ears. 

This time, he manages to be walking on his own power as he exits, hurried along by Hamilton and Jefferson into a vast aircraft hangar filled with other small planes. Like the UK Kingsman tailor shop, it is a perfectly legitimate business that just so happens to also operate as one of the many fronts of an extensive spy agency. 

“This way,” Jefferson says, and directs him to an “Employees Only” labeled room at the back. 

He punches in the code swiftly, but as is usual, there are several layers of security involved. From there, it leads into a narrow hallway. It branches off once into what seems to be a nondescript office, and at its end is a single door. 

Hamilton pops it open. 

A single mop clatters forlornly to the ground. 

It’s a storage closet. It would have enough space to fit perhaps ten people if there weren’t for the shelves ringing the space, stocked with cleaning supplies and office detritus and dimly lit by a single bulb. 

“In,” she says, picking up the mop. 

Harry makes his way across the threshold. Inside, it smells slightly musty. When he turns his head just so, the acrid scent of chemicals wafts to his nose. It’s a far cry from the Kingsman tailor shop. 

Jefferson crowds in behind him and shuts the door. He holds on to the handle until, with a jolting lurch, the entire room begins to descend into the ground. 

“We’re going to medical first, get you checked out. Franklin will be there too; he’ll get you in contact with Merlin,” Hamilton says somewhere in front of him. 

An enormous rush of relief washes over him like a crashing wave. “Thank you,” he says. 

They step out onto utilitarian concrete, which eventually gives way to dark grey carpet and a hallway littered with signage. Somewhere between one turn and the next, Jefferson waves goodbye, striding quickly towards yet another destination- perhaps to rescue another downed agent. Harry has caught the U.S HQ at a bad time. No one rushes through the halls, yelling demands into their glasses, but as he passes open doorways, he can see people working at their desks, grim-faced or blankly exhausted, a silent tension settled over their shoulders like a thick fog. 

Many of the desks are empty. 

A few more twists and turns later, and Harry finds himself in a medical ward. He is almost immediately beset upon by nurses, who have him situated in a bed and are checking him over before he can so much as open his mouth. 

“Dehydrated,” one mutters, and helps him remove his suit jacket to get at the veins in his arm. His skin goes cold from alcohol. The needle of the IV slips in, a sharp bite then nothing. 

“Where’s Franklin?” Harry asks. 

“Over here,” a voice calls out. 

A woman rounds the corner. Her shoes click rapidly on the floor, and based on the look on her face she might be planning to eviscerate the next person she sees with them. There’s something decidedly hawkish about her gaze, fierce and predatory, and Harry ruthlessly suppresses the urge to draw back when she comes over to peer at him over round, thin glasses. She doesn’t seem even close to the same person Hamilton and Jefferson had joked with over their comms. 

“We haven’t been introduced before,” she says, “so for the sake of formality: Franklin. And you are Galahad.” 

“Yes. I was told you could connect me with Merlin?“ 

“Right.” She sticks a hand into the pocket of her coat- long, white- and withdraws a set of bulky black frames. “I had a pair lying around. Merlin can get you back up to speed. Then we’ll see about getting you properly checked over and shipped back across the pond.” 

“Thank you,” Harry says. Franklin nods sharply and goes back the way she came, disappearing as Harry fumbles the glasses on, unfamiliar weight settling across his nose. 

A familiar Scottish brogue grates against his ear first, and as the glasses flicker on, Merlin’s familiar features appear on the tiny screen. “Harry,” Merlin breathes. 

“Merlin,” Harry says. “God, it’s good to see you.” 

Merlin scrubs a hand over his face and blinks once, twice. “Harry,” he says thickly, “I… it’s good to have you back.” 

A tiny smile tugs at his lips. Despite himself, he can feel the tension drain from his face, a fuzzy buzz of endorphins and adrenaline flooding his brain until he’s nearly giddy with it. “It’s good to be back.” 

Merlin snorts through the water gleaming in his eyes. Harry stares, mildly affronted. “What is it?” 

“No, nothing. I’ll tell you later,” he says, typing rapidly on something just out of frame. “Eggsy will be glad to hear you’re alive.” 

“Will he?” Harry murmurs, idly twisting the sheets in his fingers. 

“What do you mean?” 

Harry realizes, belatedly, that Merlin was not present for his conversation- well, argument, if he’s being honest- with Eggsy just before he left for Kentucky. “We had… a heated discussion after the trials.” 

“After he failed the dog test,” Merlin says shrewdly. 

“Yes.” 

Merlin peers at him narrowly through the screen. “Well? What happened?” 

“It was not resolved to my satisfaction.” 

“Things rarely are,” Merlin says.

Harry’s mouth twists. “Nor to his, I’m afraid.” 

“Oh, is _that_ the problem.” Merlin leans back in his chair. “Don’t be foolish, Harry, the lad was devastated. Dramatics don’t suit you.”

Harry is just self-aware enough to admit to himself that, yes, he is being dramatic. At one point, when he was young and slightly more malleable than he is now, it might have been possible to drill that part of his personality out of him and make him entirely into the staid Repressed English Gentlemen he likes to project. Unfortunately, he indulged in dramatics when he was younger, and the habit followed him throughout months of Kingsman training and through two decades of being a Kingsman agent and now he despairs of ever letting it go. 

If he’s being honest, he doesn’t want to. There’s something deeply satisfying about picking a fight with rude thugs in a pub, about throwing a lighter and watching an entire room fill with flame, and- yes- allowing himself to fall into these maudlin bouts of self-pity. 

But he’ll be damned if Merlin gets wind of it, so instead of saying Eggsy was furious or something equally condemning he says: “Is he doing well?” 

“As well as someone who has lost their mentor and is running back-to-back missions trying to clean up Valentine’s mess can be,” Merlin says, “but yes. I’d say, he’s doing very well. Quick learner, good agent. You’ll see when you get back.”

“I can only hope,” Harry says. He sees a lecture forming in Merlin’s eyes, and hastily adds: “What did Valentine do?” 

Merlin sobers instantly. “Do you remember anything of what happened before you were shot?” 

“It was the sim cards. He made them release a signal somehow.” 

“Exactly,” Merlin says. “Now, imagine what happened to you the church, but anywhere that had V-cards and a damn cell signal.” 

The town. The highways. “Fuck,” Harry spits. 

“We stopped him before he could do all of what he planned,” Merlin says, “but the damage he caused-“ Merlin scrubs a hand over his face. “We’ll be cleaning up this mess for decades.” 

“What did he have planned?” 

“Not sure,” Merlin says grimly. “We’re still going through the files we retrieved from his base. They’re a rather low priority at the moment, but we know he had plans to refine the sim cards and seed places that didn’t get cell signal to spread it even there too.” He pauses. “As it was, he wanted to keep the signal on for at least ten minutes. Thanks to Eggsy, he had just three minutes and forty-five seconds.” 

Three minutes and forty-five seconds. Untold millions, dead in three minutes and forty-five seconds. The carnage in the church, in the tiny backwater town, had been bad enough; he can barely imagine London in the aftermath of Valentine’s spell. 

Harry swallows around his dry throat. “How many?” 

“Death tolls still coming in,” Merlin says, “if they are at all. We estimate at least sixty percent of the world’s political leaders were killed, including the U.S President and the Prime Minister. It was because of Valentine’s implants,” he says in response to Harry’s expression, “and admittedly I hold much of the fault for that.” 

“What?” Harry says, faintly. 

Merlin pushes up one shoulder in a half-hearted facsimile of a shrug. “I detonated them. Needed to get us out alive, see.” 

“Merlin-“ 

“But enough of that,” Merlin says, “You’ll have plenty of time to go through this when you come back.” He chuckles bitterly. 

Merlin looks- Merlin looks how Harry feels. There are bags etched deep under his eyes, stress and worry creasing his face until he looks ten years older. By his left hand, almost out of view, Harry can see a mug of coffee and a half-eaten sandwich, looking wilted and stale. 

“Merlin,” Harry says, “You did what you had to.” 

“You really believe that, do you.” 

“Merlin, I killed over fifty people in a church with my bare hands. They were deplorable examples of humanity, but they didn’t deserve it.” Harry wraps his hands tightly together. He can feel them trembling. He hates it. “They were just bystanders caught in the crossfire, people who had nothing to do with Kingsman. The people you killed- Valentine’s accomplices- they had the implants. They were involved from the very beginning. They might not have deserved it either, but at least in that case Kingsman has no right to a moral high ground.” 

“You didn’t have a choice,” Merlin snaps. “What you did- that wasn’t you, Harry.” 

“That’s a bit hard to accept, considering that I physically remember impaling three people on a wooden pole,” Harry says. “I believed, at the time, that it was justified.” 

“You weren’t in control of yourself!” 

“And you were under extreme duress and made a decision that, in your words, got you, Eggsy, and Lancelot out alive, and likely saved the world from complete destruction,” Harry says. His hands are clammy with the possibility. “Which I am incredibly grateful for, might I add.” 

Merlin just glares at him before folding and pressing his hand to brow. “Shit. I can’t believe I forgot how difficult you could be.” 

“Thank you.” 

“That was not a fucking compliment.” Merlin scowls unblinkingly at his desk, then rights himself. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree. And get psyche evals when I’ve got more than five fucking minutes to spare.” 

“Of course,” Harry says pleasantly. “Feeling better?” 

“Go fuck yourself.” Merlin maintains the façade for a minute longer, but then his mouth twitches. “I missed you.” 

Harry allows a tiny smile to spread across his face. “Oh, did you now.” 

Merlin rolls his eyes, not even bothering to dignify that with an answer. He leans towards the camera. “Speaking of, how _did_ you survive?” 

Annoyance stirs, ripples over a still lake. “I don’t know.” 

“I saw the video, but-“ 

“It seems unbelievable, doesn’t it,” Harry says quietly. “An act of God.” 

Merlin grimaces. “I suppose.” He looks as if hurts him to admit that even the arbiter of Kingsman’s incredible technological advancements has no possible explanation for what happened. “Apparently the Americans want to run a few tests to try and find out. Noninvasive, and the results sent directly over here when they’re done. What do you think?” 

“How long will it take?” Harry asks. 

“You wouldn’t stay longer than you are already,” Merlin says. “We won’t be able to arrange safe transport for at least forty-eight hours, so at the moment you’re stuck. They might be able to figure out why,” he gestures vaguely at Harry’s face, “that happened.” 

“Well in that case,” Harry says. His fierce desire for answers wars against the near-equal desire to protect his own privacy, well-developed paranoia from years of service warning him to refuse. Eventually, his questions win out. “I don’t see why not.” 

Merlin flicks his eyes up to look at him properly. “They’re definitely going to have some samples kept for research, and results might not appear right away. They’ve got other things to worry about.” 

“More heads are better than one, isn’t that how the saying goes?” Harry says. “In any case, facilitating inter-agency cooperation can’t hurt.” 

Merlin sighs. “Aye, I suppose you’re right.” 

Harry raises an eyebrow. “Then why do you look like you’ve swallowed a goldfish?” 

Harry takes great pleasure in watching Merlin’s face twist further. 

Placing such confidential information out of his control must drive that little controlling part of Merlin’s brain mad, but understandably so. The potential consequences of this particular tidbit escaping Kingsman’s security net are particularly damning, not only for Kingsman but also for Harry himself. 

Having been friends with the man for over three decades now, Harry is well-acquainted with Merlin’s tendency towards micromanagement. He is also well-acquainted to accommodating it. “If you don’t think it’s a good idea, I wouldn’t mind terribly if you turned them down,” he offers. 

“No, no.” Merlin waves him off. “I’m being... well. You died, Harry.” 

Ah. “I’m not about to die again, Merlin.” 

“We don’t know that,” Merlin says quietly. “We don’t know a damned thing.” 

“That’s what the exams are for, aren’t they?” 

“I know, I know.” Merlin sighs. “I’ll just have to live with it, won’t I? Fuck.” 

Harry smirks. “Yes, you will. What kind of tests can I expect?” 

The answer is: far too many for comfort. Blood tests, blood and saliva samples, skin cell samples from wound site, cheek swabs- a biopsy is also on the list, to which Harry responds with a categorical 'no'. 

“I thought they said ‘noninvasive’,” Harry says.

Merlin mutters darkly, and the clatter of keys indicates the beginnings of a furious email. 

After he clicks off the line, promising to convey Harry’s agreements to the higher ups, Harry settles back down against the bed, careful not to jostle the IV. Minutes pass, and he’s wondering how much of a bother he might cause if he happened to press the call button and request some water when an exhausted-looking nurse enters the ward pushing a trolley. One by one, the nurse unloads items from the trolley to Harry’s bedside table: water, a bottle whose contents are an alarming shade of red, food, and finally an enormous sheaf of papers. 

“Drink as much as you can, and finish the Gatorade. Just put the tray on the table when you’re done- you’re ok for that right?- and call if you need more water,” he says. “And as for these…” he drops the papers at Harry’s bedside, where they land with an ominous thump and flutter. A pen also clatters to the tabletop. “Release forms!” he says with obnoxious cheer. “Read and sign.” 

Just looking at them makes Harry’s head throb. 

With a tired sigh, he settles the tray across the two guardrails and pulls the papers closer, chewing mechanically as he reads. It’s relatively straightforward, but he’s only about halfway through when an hour later another agent, this time laid out on a stretcher, whips by the foot of his bed. 

They situate her a few stations down. She looks to be in much worse shape, her suit jacket shredded and one sleeve hanging on by a literal thread. There are bruises on her neck where someone might have tried to strangle her. Blood oozes quietly from a slice across her ribs, but she makes no attempt to speak or move. Her hands are clasped tightly around her ears, and she stays utterly, completely silent. 

Nurses and doctors huddle around her and block the scene from Harry’s view, but then one assistant breaks off. The agent’s injuries don’t seem to be enough to account for the alarmed expression on the man’s face. He almost-runs for the exit, clothes billowing behind him.

Merlin gets back on the line with a quiet click. “I think that was the second of their agents they managed to bring back alive,” he says. This time, there’s no video; just a familiar accented voice in his ear. 

“Who was the first?” 

“He was… Madison, I think. He’s conscious, even, nothing worse than broken bones.” 

“Lucky,” Harry murmurs. 

“Aye,” Merlin says. “Nothing strange happened on retrieval. And then they went and fetched _you_.” There’s a pause. “Seems like you’re not the only one developing superpowers today.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“The one in your ward over there. According to Franklin, that particular agent asked why everyone was yelling, and then when they told her they weren’t, proved it by repeating a whispered conversation that happened between the doctor and one of the nurses fifty meters away.”

Harry stares, unseeing, at the paper in his hands. “I see.”

“No, I don’t think you do,” Merlin says. “She’s repeating, for Franklin, what I’m telling you. Right now.” 

“That shouldn’t be possible.” 

“Lots of things shouldn’t, and yet, here we are.” 

Harry lifts his hand to scrub his thumb across his left temple. All he can feel is the thin, papery texture of faintly scarred skin. 

“Here I am,” he murmurs.


End file.
